About twenty minutes later, he watched as she prepared breakfast. The black stove dominating the corner had been his mother’s. It belched up clouds of smoke occasionally, true, but it got the job done.
He noticed that Rebecca seemed a bit jumpy with the skillet, and she’d burned the first round of flapjacks. It puzzled him, and he frowned at her back as she ladled out another batch with a big wooden spoon. Her excessively full skirts seemed out of place in the tiny cabin, a constant reminder that she belonged in some city somewhere, not up here in the forest. But, to his mind, even a city girl should at least know how to cook. Or maybe she came from one of those houses where servants did all the work? That didn’t bode well. Pop had made a mistake this time, for sure. How could a woman used to having servants do her bidding survive in a place like this?
His wife loved another man, and now she couldn’t cook either.
Oh, this is getting better and better.
Rebecca placed a sad stack of blackened flapjacks before him, and he tried to offer her a grateful smile. He’d need about twice that amount plus a rasher of bacon to make it to noon, but he kept the thought to himself. He stuck his fork gingerly into the cakes and was rewarded by an ooze of batter.
“Oh, no! Let me put them back on.” She looked frantic.
“No, don’t bother,” he said quickly. “That’s how Pop makes them.” It wasn’t quite a lie. Pop couldn’t make a decent flapjack either. He’d hoped she could at least take over the cooking duties, but that looked like it wasn’t going to work out so well.
Isaac forced himself to eat the soggy cakes and pushed back from the table, squelching a groan.
“I’m, uh, going to go check on my men.” He ducked his head, avoiding those vulnerable green eyes staring at him. It didn’t feel right leaving her here alone. Plumb wrong, actually.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. The way she lifted her chin made him feel she was just trying to put a brave face on it. “You’ve got work to do.”
“Stay near the cabin. It’s not safe to go off wandering,” he warned, hesitating for a moment. Perhaps he should stay?
Stay and do what? Go for a walk with her? Pretend nothing had happened?
A band of pain tightened around his skull.
No, not today. He couldn’t. He needed to get away—if only for a little while—to clear his head. He turned away and headed for the door.
***
Becky watched his lanky swagger as he crossed the room. He bumped into a huge crate of chains and kicked at it with the toe of his spiky-bottomed, calked boot, but he didn’t bother to move it. Did they like living in this mess? Or maybe they just never had the time or energy to clean it. She stared as he closed the door behind him, leaving her alone.
As soon as the wooden door latch clunked into place, she sagged onto her chair, defeated. She groaned with embarrassment. Her first day as a wife and she’d neglected her wifely duties in the bedroom, admitted to his face that she loved another man, and now she’d failed to make him a decent meal. It was that ancient monster of a stove—it was impossible to control the temperature.
Isaac hadn’t kissed her goodbye. It was a small stray thought that hit her from nowhere.
And why would he?
After her confession early this morning, he probably couldn’t stand the sight of her. The day he’d held her hand in the Pearsons’ parlor, she’d come to hope they could at least share some affection. She quelled the sharp feeling of loss that struck her. They were married right and proper now, and he was her husband. She’d be a good wife to him, a real helpmate—well, once she mastered that beast of a stove.
If only he knew how much she wished her heart was free. If she could somehow blink and make it happen—make herself not love Jack—she would, but that was impossible. That wasn’t the way the heart worked, was it? She’d tried often enough to know it wasn’t possible to wish love away, even an inconvenient love such as hers, the kind that wasn’t returned. The one-sided kind.
The realization left her feeling unfit to be Isaac’s bride. He wanted something more than she could give him. When he’d questioned her about Jack, she’d yearned to deny she was in love with someone else, but what else could she do except tell him the truth? To do any less would be showing him a lack of respect, and he’d been kind to her so far. Generous even. He’d paid for all the expenses for her journey out here, hadn’t he? Or maybe Sam had, seeing as he was the one who’d sent for her, which was a whole other headache. And, looking around, it seemed to Becky that neither one of them had a cent to spare.
Surely Sam had expected a woman to come whose heart was free. Isaac certainly had expected it. She’d seen as much in his face when he’d asked her about Jack. Accused her, more like it. He’d expected her to be honest with him up front.
She’d failed again.
She’d tried to point out that he hadn’t exactly been fully honest either, but the look he’d given her had told her quite clearly what he thought of that: it wasn’t the same.
He wasn’t in love with anyone.
He never had been. That’s what he said. Meaning he’d come into this marriage with his heart unattached. Completely.
Becky rested her forehead on the table, feeling a hundred failures weighing her down.
No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t seem to fit in anywhere, could she? No. At home, Papa, Mama, and Rachel had been like a matched set of gold beads strung on a fine chain, and she’d been this one mismatched, ceramic bead. When she’d been removed from the chain, the family had finally seemed complete—like she’d never really belonged.
There was a good reason for that. She knew that now. Mama had told her their secret. She’d finally understood why Papa acted the way he did toward her. Because she wasn’t his. Her mother was a woman she’d known only as Auntie Mari, a woman she’d barely known when she was alive. And she didn’t even know who her real father was.
Becky forced her head off the table and looked around the tiny cabin, taking in the sooty wood floor and piles of unwashed dishes lying on every flat surface, left over from the wedding party yesterday. The place desperately needed cleaning. Here was one way to make herself useful to Isaac. Pushing away from the table, she gathered all the filthy dishes into the sink. Only then did she realize there was no pump. Isaac had given her a pitcher of fresh goat’s milk earlier for the batter, so she hadn’t needed water, hadn’t noticed the missing pump. She groaned. At least at home there’d been a pump at the sink, a decent stove, and real furniture.
Heading outside, she found a water barrel next to the back door, but some large animal must have overturned it during the night, for the water had already seeped into the earth, making it slick and muddy. She resolutely traced her way back to the stream she’d crossed with Isaac on their trek up the mountain and hauled buckets back and forth to refill the barrel. She was strong enough for the task, but it wasn’t long before she abandoned the perfectly proper crinoline she’d worn to impress Isaac. He wasn’t around to notice the lack of fullness to her skirts anyway, and the stiffened hoops got in the way.
It took her nearly an hour to scootch and pull the heavy box of chains from the cabin all the way to the lean-to, but when she was done, she felt a sense of true accomplishment. The pretty coffee-brown filly she’d ridden up the mountain was still in the lean-to, and Becky stopped to give her a quick brushing. She’d miss the saucy mare when Isaac took her back to town. And he would for sure now, after what happened last night. She sighed and searched the coop for fresh eggs, but didn’t find any.
Rubbing a sore spot at the small of her back, Becky went back inside to finish straightening up. By the time she finished, she was filthy. It looked like in the process of cleaning she’d transferred all the cabin’s grime to her dress and skin. She desperately wanted and needed a nice hot bath, but that was impossible. There was no way she could fill the tin washtub with water. Absolutely no way. Every little muscle and tendon ached. She could barely move wi
thout cramping up.
Besides that, the stove was still a daunting challenge, one she was too tired to tackle. So she made do with a bucket of cold water to wash her hair, and rubbed her face and arms with a grayed cloth. The sad material must have been white once. To make matters worse, each trip to the privy that day had been a struggle with the blasted door, which kept trapping her inside the stuffy darkness.
***
Isaac had successfully avoided his father all morning, not the easiest of tasks. But with his father’s focus on training the newer teams, he’d been able to stay out of sight by working with the more senior members of the outfit. Isaac was starting to think he might be able to slip away unnoticed, until he finally ran into his father late in the day.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” Pop demanded. Behind him came the ominous crack of timber, and then a shower of limbs and fragrant pine needles.
The crack echoed in Isaac’s head.
“Working.” Best to keep it simple. Less to argue with.
“You mean to tell me you left that little gal alone—the day after your wedding?” Pop shook his head in disbelief, and Isaac stiffened as his father’s steel-blue eyes skimmed over him. It was clear he didn’t like what he saw. “I raised you, Son, but if I didn’t remember every minute of it, I’d be starting to wonder.”
“Pop, please, just leave it?” Isaac turned and saw a Douglas fir downhill a ways, which two of his men were fixing to fell. He squinted and could see one of the men was Tanner, but he didn’t recognize the other one. There was something about the young man—really not much more than a boy—that didn’t quite sit right with Isaac. He started to move in their direction.
“Hold up there, Son.” Pop placed a hand on his arm.
Isaac glanced over his shoulder to find his father scowling, the planes of his cheeks and the corners of his eyes creased with concern. Isaac turned back to him.
“Aw, Pop. Things are fine. We just need some time. Can you give us some time?”
Pop slowly nodded, but he looked hurt. Isaac wouldn’t have hurt him for the world, but if he gave his father even a piece of the story Pop’d be digging at him with questions, like a persistent badger, until he had the whole of it. Isaac wasn’t prepared to tell him the whole of it yet. Especially since he hadn’t quite wrapped his mind around the situation himself.
“Thanks, Pop.” He gripped his father’s shoulder and looked him in the eye, letting him know there wasn’t any big disaster to worry about. Or at least he made an attempt. Seeing a flicker of acceptance in his father’s eyes, Isaac strode off to inspect the new youth’s footing.
As he moved down the slope, he paused to check the progress of the peeler crew, a team of men who were stripping the bark off the felled pine, so it could slide more easily down the mountain to the Skid Road. From there the logs would eventually end up in Port Gamble, the sawmill where Isaac sent his logs to be cut and shipped. After satisfying himself that the work was progressing on schedule, he continued down the mountain.
As he approached the two-man falling team, he eyed the placement of the new young man’s springboard to see if it was steady enough to support his weight. Up close, Isaac could see he was only about sixteen or seventeen, with the broad shoulders and muscled arms of a much older man. His dark bangs fell into his eyes, a hazard, but he seemed eager enough. Isaac took note of his awkward stance and decided he lacked experience.
“Tanner?” Isaac looked curiously at his logger standing beside the tree with the saw, an oilcan in his hand.
“Boss.” Tanner acknowledged him with a respectful nod. “This here’s Jem Wheeler. Came in yesterday.”
Isaac looked up briefly, giving the young man a hard stare to let him know he was being sized up. He turned back to Tanner. The rough, taciturn man was one of his most experienced fallers, but in Isaac’s present mood, he felt the need to be all over everybody.
“No one asked me about that,” he said. “Did Pop bring him on?”
“No...your father wasn’t around much yesterday. And, well, with your wedding and all, I figured you was too busy for a such a trifling crew decision.” Tanner frowned, his manner now a mite edgy. “You got a problem with me, sir?”
“Just checking,” Isaac said. He liked and admired Tanner, always had. He was a hard-working man—and had never been anything but respectful. And now Isaac had essentially called his judgment into question. Tanner didn’t deserve that.
The logger nodded and climbed up on his springboard.
Isaac hesitated. An image flashed through his mind: Jem lying on the ground, his fresh face pale and lifeless. Maybe he should see to training Jem himself. “You’re the finest faller I got, Tanner. In fact, why don’t you go down and help Harper finish up? Almost quitting time, isn’t it? I’ll see to Jem.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Jessup,” Tanner said. He hopped down from his perch and walked off, his body stiff-backed and proud.
Isaac stared after him for a moment and then turned to oil the falling saw—a ten-foot long, two-handled saw that he and Jem would use to slice through the thick trunk. But first they needed to cut a swath with the axes, so he hauled himself onto the springboard Tanner had already set up on the other side of the tree and grabbed the ax Tanner had left embedded in the trunk. Isaac soon lost himself to the rhythm of alternating chops, as he and Jem took turns at the tree. The steady thwack of metal against wood felt satisfying. This he could do.
After they formed a satisfactory undercut, Isaac looked over at Jem. “Ready to saw?”
“Yessir.”
Pulling the saw was backbreaking work, but Isaac hadn’t started out as the owner of a logging operation. He’d worked his way up from a peeler to a faller, back when he was about Jem’s age, in fact. Back before he and Pop had enough capital to finance their own outfit. The steady sawing action left his mind a little too free to think about Rebecca and this man named Jack, who she’d admitted she loved. The thoughts doubled his efforts on the saw, until he feared poor Jem was going to fall off his springboard from sheer exhaustion.
Isaac showed Jem how to drive in the wedges to deepen the undercut so the saw could move freely, and after several more hours of tedious work, they were ready to make the final back cut.
When they were almost through cutting the backside of the tree, they called out a warning to clear the area.
“Jem,” Isaac yelled over at his young falling partner.
“Boss?”
“Remember, loose branches come down fast and hard. When I say go, leap as far as you can and scramble on out of range. You hear?” Concern made Isaac’s voice come out harsh and edgy.
“Yessir, boss. I’ve heard of ’em widda makers.” Jem swallowed long and hard and ran a hand through his black hair.
“Well, we call them ‘widow makers’ for a reason. Don’t ever forget that.”
Jem swallowed hard again, and his face, if possible, paled more.
Good, Isaac thought, he should be sober. He should be sober and quick.
As they made their final cuts, the screaming cracks of a tree ready to fall pierced the air.
“Go!” Isaac leapt off his perch and took off running through the trees. The huge fir collapsed through the thick canopy of limbs above, sending a shower of branches to the ground. He turned back to watch in horror as a heavy limb landed on Jem’s back, trapping him underneath.
“Jem!”
The tree landed with a reverberating crash. Isaac couldn’t see the boy. He sprinted over, climbing over fallen limbs, scraping his hands and shins. There he was, an arm. Isaac hauled the heavy branch off him, praying as he pulled it off. Please let Jem be unharmed.
As soon as the branch rolled off him, the young man levered himself up on his elbow and grinned at Isaac. His eyes were alight with excitement.
“We felled ’er, boss.”
“I told you to get out of range.” Isaac laid into him, hard and fast, his heart still racing painfully in his chest. “This isn’t a game, boy.
You could’ve been killed. Now, go! Get on back to camp,” he ordered, pointing, then leaned his hands against his thighs and just breathed. He was shaking.
“Sorry, boss.”
Isaac could see Jem hanging back in his peripheral vision.
“Just get on back to camp.” Isaac said, struggling to speak in a more measured tone. It had all happened so quick. It could’ve been worse, much worse. Jem looking cowed and very young, but he still didn’t seem to fully get it. How could he? He was young. He’d survived. He had a story to tell his friends. Isaac could almost hear him bragging about it now.
Isaac shook his head. All he wanted to do was yell at the boy, but he snapped his mouth shut. Sending Jem away was the only way to protect him from a fresh outburst, so he waved the youth on.
He kept an eye on Jem as he slunk off in the direction of the bunkhouse. But what he really saw was that branch falling, taking Jem down, trapping him.
For the next hour or so, Isaac pushed his men harder than usual. The incident with Jem was weighing on him. And all the thinking about Rebecca loving this Jack fellow only added to his strain. As he was packing up to head home, he saw some of his men walking through the trees ahead, their voices carrying back to him.
“What do you think’s got into the boss?” That was Tanner’s voice.
“Maybe there’s something amiss with the new Missus,” Harper whispered back a little too loudly, for Isaac could hear him fine.
“I don’t know, but we’re gonna break like twigs if he keeps pushing us so hard.”
“You got that right.” Their voices grew fainter as they moved away.
The Unexpected Bride (The Brides Book 1) Page 7